Shooting Eros - The Emuna Chronicles: Complete Boxset: Books 1 - 3

by Benjamin Laskin

  “Wait,” Ellen said. She turned to Chauncey. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

  “No, you don’t. I don’t trust this man.”

  “Well, I do,” she retorted. “Who says you’re a better judge of character than I?”

  “Can’t you see there is something very strange about this guy? He’s not normal.”

  “That’s the whole point, Chauncey. He’s unique, and I want to know why.”

  Cyrus cleared his throat, interrupting their spat. “Excuse me,” he said. “Ellen, Professor Matterson is right. I have no special powers, just a better than average memory. I suggest that you forget you ever met me.”

  “A good memory doesn’t cover the sort of things you know about us,” she said. “What you have told us would go under the heading of clairvoyance or claircognizance.”

  “What ever it is, it is not more important than your wedding. So good luck, and I apologize for any trouble that I might have caused.” He gave the rim of his baseball cap a respectful tug and left the room.

  48

  Alley Oops

  Captain Volk and I followed Cyrus out of the building. The icy glare that Ellen Veetal shot at her fiancé told us that their wedding plans were on the skids. We felt there was no reason to observe the wreck.

  “Hello, boys,” Cyrus said blithely as he hit the sidewalk that passed through the university’s campus.

  “What?” I said, looking at Captain Volk in amazement. “Captain Cyrus, can you hear us?” I waved my hand in front of his face.

  Cyrus smiled. “Kohai, please don’t wave your hand in front of my face. It’s rude.”

  “Captain Volk!” I said excitedly. “He can see us! He can hear us! How—?”

  “No, Kohai,” Cyrus said, “I can’t see you or hear you. As far as I know, I’m just talking out loud and making a spectacle of myself. I am going on the assumption that you have found me, and knowing you well, Kohai, I’m just imagining your reaction. I really have no idea. If you’re out there, you are going to have to find a way to communicate with me. I’m trying on my end, but for now, this is the best I can do, and I must say, I feel damn stupid doing it. At least when I talk to God, I know He’s listening. Weird, huh?” He chuckled.

  “So,” Cyrus continued. “You must be wondering what I’m up to, and why I’ve put myself in this precarious situation. It’s simple. The fate of the world and of my fellow angels are at stake. I can’t sit back and do nothing. If Ellen Veetal is the Swerver, then she must be free to find her match and strike the mystical spark that rejuvenates the world. As you may have noticed, Chauncey Matterson does not appear to be a fitting candidate. I inserted myself into the equation without physically interfering, in the hopes of snapping her out of the delusion that has taken hold of her.”

  Cyrus tipped his cap to a couple of pretty coeds in black spandex pants and wooly turtleneck sweaters who smiled coquettishly at him as they sashayed past.

  “Kohai,” he scolded, “eyes front and center.” He continued. “I don’t know if I have succeeded, but I may have at least bought some time until we figure out what is going on. Hopefully, you have made some progress in this regard. I must admit, however, that I have begun to question my own thesis. I’ve come to wonder, even doubt, that Ms. Veetal is indeed the Swerver.”

  “Same here, Captain!” I exclaimed. But he couldn’t hear me.

  Volk said bitterly, “If she is not the Swerver then you gave your life for nothing.”

  “V,” Cyrus said, “if this is the case, then you are probably pretty pissed off at me, eh? Just imagine how stupid I must feel!”

  Volk chuckled, and I saw his eyes well up. He missed his buddy, and I felt sad for him. I missed Captain Cyrus like a student misses his beloved teacher, but Captain Volk missed him as his one and only friend.

  “However,” Cyrus continued, “wrong though I may be about Ellen Veetal being the Swerver of the generation, I’m certain that her being matched with Professor Matterson stinks to high heaven. Something is up down here, and since I’ve already cashed in my chips, I’m not going to stop until I figure it out. Also, some dumb-ass cupids must have come down here to finish off this Veetal match.”

  “That would be us, Captain Volk.” I said.

  “And since only another human can break up a match made by a cupid,” Cyrus went on, “that’s what I have sought to do. However, it won’t be long before someone back at the Academy notices and Sett sends down another cupid to restart the match. If they learn that it was me who sabotaged the affair, they will try to take me out.”

  “Can we do that?” I said, shocked. “I thought a cupid angel is unable to materially interact with a human.”

  “Tell him, V,” Cyrus said, having correctly judged my reaction. “I’ll wait.”

  “There are different ways it could be done,” Volk explained. “A cupid could rile up the person’s existing yetzers, driving him or her over the cliff, as it were. He could shoot the person with an overdose of any number of different potions: lust and libido elixirs, for example. But the surest way is to arrange an accident. Remember how I sent that chandelier crashing down at the wedding with the lightning whip? Had someone been standing underneath it, it could have been lights out for him. Get it?”

  “But that’s murder, and we’re angels! We can’t do that.”

  “Have you forgotten Sodom and Gomorrah?” Volk said. “The angel of death in Egypt, and many others?”

  “Yes, but they were a different breed of angels,” I said. “They were carrying out judgment from the Most High.”

  “True, but for us, judgment is now in the hands of the Academy, in the hands of cupids like Judge Minos. If he were to put out a death warrant on Captain Cyrus, there are plenty of cupids who would volunteer to execute it.”

  “Is there anything Captain Cyrus can do to protect himself?” I asked, concerned.

  “Extreme vigilance,” Volk said.

  “How about a bodyguard? Virgil and I could take turns watching over him.”

  Cyrus said, “I appreciate your concern, Kohai, but if the Academy caught you acting as my guardian angel, you would risk the same fate I suffered.”

  “How does he do that?” I remarked aloud. “Am I that predictable?”

  Cyrus smiled and said, “Not you, Kohai, but your loyalty and sense of righteousness. Take it as a compliment. Anyway, don’t worry about me. I won’t be hanging around Ms. Veetal for a while. It will take the Academy some time to trace the match’s failure to me. Likewise, you both had better keep your distance from Ellen Veetal. If either of you were spotted snooping around her, it would look very suspicious.

  “Now,” Cyrus continued, “if you’re out there and you can hear me, I want you to meet me a month from today at seven p.m. sharp at Officer Sam Jeffreys’ home. I’ll be in the guesthouse in the back. In the meantime, we all have a lot to do. And perhaps by then one of us will have figured out a way to communicate. Over and out.”

  We had reached the perimeter of the campus. Captain Volk and I stopped and watched Cyrus shrink out of view and merge with a throng of pedestrians.

  “That was weird,” I said. “It was almost like old times, wasn’t it, Captain Volk?”

  “Almost,” he said absently, squinting into the distance.

  I tried to follow his gaze, but saw nothing. “What is it, Captain?”

  “Keep walking,” he commanded. “Don’t look around. Just act normal.”

  “Normal?”

  “Attaboy, just like that.”

  “Do you want to tell me where we’re going or what we’re looking for?”

  “You got any weapons on you besides your short sword?” he asked.

  “Some shurikens, two crystal demon daggers, a bola, and a lightning whip. You?”

  “About the same.”

  Without looking conspicuous, I tried to ferret out what had caught Captain Volk’s eye. I didn’t see anything suspicious. We continued along the sidewalk, passing a long row of university shops,
boutiques, and eateries.

  Volk said, “Turn here and go into invisible mode.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  We rounded a corner and then disappeared into an alley that ran parallel to the university’s main drag. The alley was used for deliveries and trash pick-ups. It stank of garbage and cat urine, and there were puddles of greasy water leftover from the previous night’s rain. Captain Volk motioned to me to split up, he to the left and me to the right. We continued down the alley.

  “Keep your eyes peeled,” Volk said switching to thought mode.

  “For what?”

  “Anything strange.”

  We walked another twenty yards when Captain Volk shouted, “Take cover!”

  We ducked behind industrial-sized, green trash receptacles at opposite sides of the alley.

  “What is it, Captain?”

  “A bad feeling.”

  I peered left and right down the alley. I didn’t see anything. I looked skyward. “Um, Captain Volk?”

  “What is it, Kohai?”

  “The ‘anything strange’ you mentioned, would that include a man soaring through the air on the back of a Vengeance Yetzer?”

  “It would.”

  “Three o’clock.”

  Swooping down from the sky came a fifteen-foot long Vengeance Yetzer. It looked like a cross between a vampire bat and a vulture, but was the size of a giant pterodactyl. Vengeance Yetzers, as the name implies, cause humans to obsess about getting even.12

  Note 12: A person possessed by a Vengeance Yetzer lives in a fantasy world of virtual schadenfreude and payback. Believing others have unjustifiably slighted him or her, the person dreams up scenario after scenario where he or she gets to witness his foe’s downfall and humiliation. As is often the case, the perceived sleight is so trivial that the person who performed it isn’t even aware he or she did anything wrong or harmful, which only fuels the Vengeance Yetzer-possessed person’s resentment all the more.

  A screeching Vengeance Yetzer with claws extended zooming down towards you was scary enough, but one doing so disembodied from a human host was unheard of. Yetzers rarely strayed more than eyesight distance from its host. And something I certainly never heard of was a cupid riding on one!

  “Captain, have you ever seen such a thing before?”

  “No. Nor that coming behind us.” He paused. “Crap. Or in front of us.”

  I took a panicked look and spotted closing in from behind, two more yetzer-riding men, these on the backs of big, lumbering, shaggy Grudge Yetzers. The Grudge Yetzers’ long, slimy proboscises swung searchingly through the air, sniffing for cupids.

  In front of us charged a Victim Yetzer. The hideous toad-like creature rushed towards us in galloping hops. Its pointy teeth bared as it let loose a barrage of unintelligible yetzer invective. Bestriding the yetzer’s back was a man in a red uniform—demon duster at the ready and a plasma rifle holstered to his saddle.

  Above, its wings thumping the air, hovered the terrible Vengeance Yetzer and its rider.

  I maneuvered for another look and saw that our situation had further deteriorated. Armed soldiers in red had sealed both ends of the alley with stun nets and joined in the hunt. The only way out was up, but the Vengeance Yetzer and its rider were right on top of us. We were trapped.

  “Captain, who are these guys? They look like us!”

  “They were, once.”

  “You mean…”

  “Soldiers of Anteros.”

  “Can they see us as long as we’re in invisible mode?”

  “No, but the Grudge Yetzer can smell us. They know we’re here somewhere.”

  Invisible mode had two disadvantages. Because it required concentration, you couldn’t fight in it and you couldn’t whirl. To spin out of the situation we’d have to uncloak first, ensuring we’d be discovered, and so be blasted to goop on the spot. If we remained invisible much longer, the Grudge Yetzers would sniff us out and the Anteros soldiers would open fire on us, spraying the area with splicer bullets. If hit, we’d lose our cloaking, and then they’d finish us off.

  The Victim Yetzer skid to a halt in the middle of the alley.

  “Dogs of Eros!” the rider called out. “Show yourselves and live!”

  “Captain Volk…?” I said nervously.

  “Steady, Kohai.”

  “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  “Pray.”

  49

  Backdoor Deal

  The Anteros soldier, gun arm extended, scanned the alley for a sign of our location. “I know you are here,” he bellowed. “Show yourselves or die!”

  The Grudge Yetzers snuffling their way towards us closed in. Captain Volk and I had only seconds before they’d sniff us out.

  The back door to one of the restaurants swung open, and a young man with a stuffed trash bag in each hand exited the building. He was oblivious to the eight-foot Victim Yetzer in front of him, or the screeching Vengeance Yetzer above flapping its bat-like wings.

  “The door!” Volk shouted in thought mode.

  We dashed for the opening.

  “Dive, Kohai! I’m right behind you!”

  “Oh, no you don’t!” the soldier on the Victim Yetzer shouted, anticipating our plan.

  He wheeled his yetzer around and opened fire at the door.

  Demon duster bullets zipped over my head, just missing me. Had I run in instead of dived I’d have been a goner. I skimmed across the kitchen floor of the restaurant and rolled off to the left. Captain Volk rolled right. More bullets whizzed through the air.

  The young man returned from his trash haul and slammed the door shut, but not before three Anteros commandos with splicer submachine guns had rushed in ahead of him.

  Back in cloaking mode, Volk and I crawled into the restaurant’s dining room. The hamburger joint was full of students enjoying the happy hour’s half-priced beer.

  “Kohai, stay clear of the door. They are expecting us to run out when it opens.”

  Sure enough, the soldiers opened fire around the door, peppering it with splicer slugs and fizzing, electric blue photon blasts.

  Volk leaped atop the wooden bar counter and crouched. I took cover squeezing in between the jukebox and a bulging coat stand.

  Not wanting to chance drawing the ire of the students’ own yetzers by accidentally shooting one of them, the Anteros soldiers withdrew bayonet-sized demon daggers and began a search of the premises. Except for being dressed in red battle uniforms, they were indistinguishable from the toughest cupid commandos.

  “Show yourselves, you cupid cowards!” shouted one of the soldiers; a blond, brawny fellow with a golden earring and a large tattoo of a bleeding heart on his forearm. He carefully maneuvered the perimeter of the restaurant, stabbing his bayonet into every nook and cranny. The others followed suit, zeroing in on me.

  I withdrew one of my two crystal daggers and squatted. I saw a boot plant itself in front of me as the soldier it belonged to jabbed his bayonet into the space I had been filling just a moment before. I plunged my dagger into the foot, and immediately forfeited my cloaking.

  The fighter shrieked.

  I sprang upwards and smacked him under the chin with the palm of my hand, dropping him flat onto his back. I reached behind and unsheathed my kodachi short sword. The soldier went for his demon duster, but I cartwheeled through the air and left my sword impaled in his chest.

  I turned and saw his comrade about to crush my skull with the butt of his rifle. Suddenly, the soldier dropped his weapon as his hands flew for Captain Volk’s bola that was wrapped around his throat. I snap kicked the soldier in the groin, grabbed him by the ears, and slammed his nose into my knee. He reached for a demon dagger strapped to his leg, but I had mine out first. I stabbed it into the base of his skull. He died and quickly pooled, joining his friend in goop land.

  “Well, if it isn’t the legendary Captain Volk,” said the remaining Anteros soldier, the one with the tattoos and earring. He swaggered towards the captain, a twe
lve-inch demon dagger in his hand. Unfazed by the death of his two comrades, he said, “You don’t remember me, do you old man?”

  “Should I?” Volk said, pivoting as the man circled him like a tiger, expertly shifting his knife from hand to hand.

  “No, I suppose not. I was a young cadet when I last saw you. But I’m sure you remember my teacher, a great cupid, Commander Tychon. Ring a bell?”

  “From the Civil War,” Volk said. “One of Anteros’s top commanders. I killed him. Leave now so I don’t have to do the same to you.”

  The soldier laughed scoffingly. “Today I will avenge him, and I will make your corpse a burnt offering to my god, to Anteros, the one and only.”

  “You are wrong on all three accounts, son,” Volk said. “You will avenge nobody and offer up nothing to your false god. Put away your weapon, retreat, repent, and live.”

  The soldier lunged. Volk stepped into the thrust, trapped the soldier’s arm, twisted, and slammed the fighter face-first into the floor, forcing him to drop his weapon. Volk’s knee in the small of the soldier’s back, the man’s arm a painful inch from being torn from its socket, the Anteros warrior cried out in pain-filled curses.

  “Who sent you?” Volk demanded.

  “I answer only to Anteros!”

  “Anteros is dead. Who sent you?”

  “Anteros is eternal!”

  Volk added another notch of pressure to the soldier’s arm, eliciting a howl. “Who gave you your orders? Tell me and I’ll let you live to fight another day.”

  “Go to Hell!”

  “Kohai,” Volk said calmly. “Look among these students and see if you can find us a cute little Mocking Demon to piss off. Since our friend here doesn’t want to talk to us, we’ll leave him in the company of his favorite yetzer.”

  At the mention of the name, Mocking Demon, the soldier went white in fear.

  A powerful yetzer with fanged teeth and muscles like bowling balls, a Mocking Yetzer resembled a cross between a massive Rottweiler and a gorilla with a bad case of mange.13